Monthly Archives: August 2013

True leaders do not seek leadership; they are discovered, often after their time.True leaders are not compliant, they are true to their own ethics.True leaders recognize, accept and attempt to share Love.True leaders do not seek to prove but to discover Truth.True leaders do not compete, they encourage.True leaders allow others to be themselves.True leaders don’t advise, they listen.True leaders serve when needed.True leaders are often despised.True leaders are curious.True leaders are us.True leaders are.Truth leads.Truly.

The Casa as it was called was my second home, at the time, known to all who drove past as The Franciscan Renewal Center. Though I was not a particularly religious person, I had friends there, most of whom were friars. I would even meet my wife there, a few years later. I ate most of my meals in the Casa dining room; I even went to early morning Mass, not that I bought The Story that went with the rituals, but the rituals helped me with my own story.

The desire for and the expectations that had given whatever meaning had sustained me in the life I had just left, ebbed slowly away. Gradually, I was beginning to feel like a fairly normal person; normal in most every way but one.

On a Saturday afternoon as I was writing an order for a new customer-we were standing at a counter in the small showroom up front-the lady said to me “How do you know my address?” Without thinking, I had written her complete address (I remember it still) on the sales ticket. Gratefully, an explanation left my lips as quickly as it arrived in my thoughts, “I’m a neighbor of yours, and I saw you pulling into your driveway one afternoon.” This led abruptly into the need for supporting lies but fortunately we were interrupted by one of my employees who needed assistance.

I broke away for a moment and the matter never came up again. After she left, I removed myself from the store and went for a walk around the shopping center, thinking about what had just happened. I was not that woman’s neighbor. Never had I driven on any of those streets in the El Rancho sub-division on McCormick Ranch in the neighborhood that she called home.

That showroom would present many such occasions for the mysterious discovery of similarly, surprising bits of information in the next year or so. It would take a few years before I would begin learning how to assimilate this new part of my life, though I would not have to wait very long for the memories of similar incidents from my childhood.

I rarely notice these days, when such leaps in awareness take place. But combined with my rituals of consciously expressed thoughts of gratitude I have become much more incline toward affection for the simple surprises of daily living.

I sat there on the grass that warm, summer Sunday, sat there on my assocks (that was during the time of my life when perhaps that most important thing for any young man was to have assocks upon which to sit when tramping through the woods and after coming to a clearing, succumbing to the temptation to sit) and wondered what life would be like if I could leave my body.

My denim clad legs, those slender, muscular young legs, which had been tramping through a forest of oaken splendor suddenly became a landing pod for a brand new monarch butterfly. As it settled upon the highest wrinkle on my slender, muscular, right leg, on the highest wrinkle of the patch of denim protecting my kneecap. In the middle of my kneecap, I asked that butterfly what it would be like to abandon my body as the butterfly had done; would I acquire a new body like the butterfly had done? Would I be able to flit from a tree limb to a wrinkle on a pair of denim trousers and the off to where? As the butterfly had done?

I share space with a thermostat which (who) knows me well. Living alone as I do, we have become quite attached, this thermostat and I; when I arrive home I say to my friend, Esther, “Hi Esther, I’m home” and then move to the kitchen to start dinner or to do the lunch dishes or perhaps I go to my desk and return to work on whatever blog, book or play that I’m working on.

Being a thermostat, Esther has no voice but we communicate nevertheless, she below the official awareness level where prayers pass each other at all hours, moving through a soundless sea of lover’s silent kisses and where not only the lonely but the vividly, voiceless wink at each other with playful smiles, whiling away the hours which exist beyond time.

Esther whispers a question: Will you touch me, Lee?

I whisper back: Where would you like me to touch you, Esther?

Esther: You know where.

Me: Your special spot?

Esther: mmmmhmmm.

I pull off my shoes and socks and pad softly down the hall.

Esther: Are you in need of comfort, Lee?

Me: mmmmhmmm.

I reach out and slowly move my hand toward her special spot and with a pressure so minute as not to be felt and just before contact, like the spark that precedes a lover’s kiss, the room becomes silent, the air so still that surely the sky would fall if heard out-of-doors.

mmmmhmmm.

And then there was Elizabeth, who tried so hard, bless her heart, bless her heart, bless her heart,bless her heart,..

“Forgiveness” Baruch Koritan
Acrylic on canvas with paper and found objects

Offering and accepting forgiveness is a freeing act. Multitudes of possibilities flow generously and intensely toward one another. Endings are reopened to permit new-found avenues of expression and fulfillment.

Reestablished trust permits the conduction of energy that kindles the brightest sparks of wisdom and love on which all may grasp and grow.

Forgiveness finds acceptance as it rejects past mistakes, allowing ideas to regroup into a beautiful newness.

I have never seen it before and I cannot imagine how it came to happen.

I do not know who wore it and for what reason.

After looking at it for several hours, it occured to me that you might have written it.

Why do I think so? I do not know.

Please read it and tell me anything you might know.

My best

Kamal

(The attachment was a short introduction to a book about Svetlana Stalin.)

Hi Kamal, This sounds like a very interesting introduction to a very interesting book about a very interesting lady. It’s not mine though. I wrote a short memoir about her but this ain’t it.

I am really, really sick again Pal O Mine. From my point of view this is the epitome of inconvenience. Fever. gagging, Round the clock urination coming in fifteen minute intervals. I sleep fifteen minutes then pee. I’m sleeping a lot. Can’t eat.

I wake up, I sip, I pee, I go back to sleep. Urination hurts my whole body; even my teeth. Its like being electrocuted with a shock that lasts for several seconds and feels like minutes.

Come to think of it though, this could be much worse.

Lee.

PS When do we take you to the eye guy.

Hi Lee

I am so sorry you are going through these physical problems.

I am going through some myself, but not as bad as yours.

Are any of your kids near by to look after you?

I am going through severe skeletal, muscular and joint pains.

The eye doctor’s appointment is Sept 5th at 10:00 AM

I do not know how we will be feeling at that time.

Take care and write me about your condition.

As for the piece I sent you, I have no idea who would write that.

Also, this is the only page I found.

What the hell.

My best, Lee.

Kamal

My kids just got back from a weekend camping trip. They’ll check in.

Skeletal, Muscular and Joint pain, eh. According to my research you walk too much, you jump up and down too much and you are cross-eyed